I’ve bee travelling the great Australian east coast drive known by some as the ‘Pathetic’ Pacific Highway for most of my 48 years, and driving it regularly over the last 25 years. Taking a break for refueling family members has its own sometimes unexpected challenges… like my recent ordering of a standard grilled chicken caesar salad st the Port Macquarie Service Centre…

Time had forgotten the scrap of paper once jammed under a board in the timber wall where tongue and grove didn’t quite meet.His tin mining grandfather lived here, where the wind whipped up the hillside in haste.Dwellings once huddled close to the colliery, perched as twilight swallows in the flame trees above the mountain road. […]

Alice escapes from gritty street, a rude wind hustling her between taxi and glass doors. Gracing the polished foyer, a white rabbit glances at his timepiece while she completes the required paperwork. High up in the sky she marvels at the busyness projected up from distant lives. The city blinks before her, a picnic rug […]

My grandmother’s mother gave birth. The boy she grew and nurtured ended in France. Launched into the trench, his name letters on a wall in Ypres. An internal examination with my obstetrician. Nine months pregnant with a baby boy in arms the next day. The man-child, caught on the cusp between, not much younger. Now […]